


My Angel

by Tarlan



Series: My Angel [1]
Category: Cube (1997), Thoughtcrimes (2003)
Genre: Angst, Hewligan, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-28
Updated: 2008-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-20 18:02:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Agent Brendan Dean and his partner Freya McAllister are assigned to investigate the sudden appearance of mortally injured and formerly missing Canadian architect David Worth in the middle of NYC.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Angel

**Author's Note:**

> For **RAPHE1** Thank you!
> 
> Written for **SmallFandomFest** FEST04 and for **Hewligan_100** prompt 29. Miracle.

Brendan stalked into the hospital with Freya only a few steps behind, and not even Freya could tell him why they'd been handed a simple 'mugging gone wrong' case on Christmas Eve. About the only thing unusual about the whole situation was how the hell a well known architect managed to disappear from Toronto thirty-six hours earlier and end up naked, beaten, fatally stabbed and frozen in a back alley in New York.

Brendan was even more intrigued when they found Wells waiting for them just outside the room, standing with a NYPD detective.

"Michael!" Freya stepped up to the man who had saved her from spending the rest of her life in a mental institution and hugged him. Neither had been expecting to see him until tomorrow afternoon as part of a Christmas Day celebration with a bunch of misfits that had no place else to go. Freya sent a glare in his direction and stepped back onto his foot deliberately, but it was true. Apart from Freya's sister, who was hosting the event, none of them exactly had family to welcome them with open arms at Christmas. All they had was each other, which was more than Brendan had the year before.

"Agent Dean, Freya McAllister. This is Detective Collins. I'll let him fill you in on the details before we go in and see Mr. Worth."

Collins nodded his head in greeting, and Brendan didn't need to be a mind reader to know he was confused as to why the NSA would be interested in a mugging. Normally the FBI would take point but perhaps it was because this case had crossed international rather than federal jurisdiction. The detective cleared his throat and glanced once at his notes before smiling grimly.

"Guess this is a night for miracles because, by all rights, this guy shouldn't still be alive. Whoever did this dumped him naked into an alley in the old warehouse district on the coldest day so far this winter. The docs reckon that was the first miracle. So fucking cold out there it literally put him on ice, better than a cryogenic freezer. I guess the next miracle belongs to the hobo that found him. Gangs took over that area about six months back and made sure the hobos stayed out but this one got kicked out of Christmas shelter near the subway after getting caught up in a fight and was looking for a way to break into one of the old warehouses to find someplace out of the wind where he could make a fire. Most any other day of the year he'd have taken one look, seen the guy had nothing worth stealing and hightailed it out of there. This one figured reporting a body might earn him a warm cell and a meal for the night so he used his last dime to call the cops. When the cops arrived, they realized the guy still had a weak pulse and called in the paramedics." Collins sighed. "I guess that's where the miracles ran out. Docs don't think he'll live to see Christmas morning."

"How was he dumped?"

Collins shook his head. "Only tracks in and out of that alley were the hobo's, the cops and the paramedics. Considering it'd been snowing for two days solid, there should have been something else but... Nada."

Wells reached out and touched Freya's arm gently. "That's where you come in." His eyes were filled with apology because he knew he was asking her to read the mind of a dying man on Christmas Eve but Brendan could see they had little choice if they wanted to find out what happened. She nodded, looking to Brendan for additional support as she walked towards the closed door, opened it, and stepped inside. Brendan and Wells followed having asked the detective to remain outside for national security reasons. He wasn't too happy but had to agree.

Brendan stepped around Freya as she froze just inside the door, and he carried on the few more steps to the bedside, looking down into a pale and battered face. Thick bandages were wrapped around the man's middle, IVs running into both arms and a nasal canula was assisting his breathing. Brendan felt a stab of surprise when the long, pale eyelashes fluttered open to reveal pain-filled blue eyes so big that they could drown a man. The crooked mouth curved up slightly on one edge and the man sighed, lips almost forming a word.

Freya seemed to break out of her shock and came forward, reaching out to wrap her small hand around the man's bruised fingers.

"Believe me, he's no angel," she whispered gently. "Don't try to talk, just think about what happened to you."

Freya's eyes widened and Brendan could put a name to every expression that crossed her face; shock, horror, disgust, pity and sorrow. Eventually she pulled back, tightening her grip for a moment before asking Brendan to sit on the chair placed beside the bed and take David Worth's hand from hers. Confused but used to his partners idiosyncrasies, he did as he was told without question, feeling the cold, slightly larger fingers tighten weakly around his. Brendan looked into the man's face, seeing beyond the swelling and bruising to the image in the file he had been handed on their way to the hospital. The face in the photo didn't do justice to the man lying before him. The smugness in the photo hadn't revealed the vulnerability behind those deep blue eyes; the arrogant twist of the mouth hadn't shown the softness of perfect, kissable lips, or highlighted the high cheek bones and strong jaw line. Yet it was those eyes that held Brendan; so full of life and intelligence slowly fading with the drugs used to control Worth's pain as his last hours on this Earth slipped away.

Brendan wished he could give this man another miracle.

Freya's voice pulled him from his thoughts. "They dropped him from a helicopter. That's why there were no tracks."

Wells called in the detective. "We're looking for a helicopter that did a fly over of that district of New York."

"That alley was too narrow to navigate. If they shoved him out the door then they did it from at least thirty feet up..." His eyes widened. "And straight into a snow drift. Must have broken his fall! God damn! Another miracle." Collins shook his head. "I'll report this in and see if I can get anything from air traffic control." He walked away quickly, needing to be outside the hospital before he could use his cellphone.

Brendan looked to Freya. "What else?"

"Jumbled, and confusing. I get the impression of cubes. Lots of cubes all leading into each other. Some were safe and others...others were death traps. Several people with him, all trying to figure a way out like rats in a maze." Her brows knitted together in anger and sorrow. "One of them was...psychotic. He did this. Quentin." She indicated towards David Worth and his injuries.

"Where is he now?"

She shook her head. "Dead. Along with... I couldn't catch their names. Two women. One older and the other a teenage math genius. Quentin killed her before he..."

"And what about the people that put him in these cubes?" Wells asked.

She shook her head. "He doesn't know exactly, except he kept saying it was his fault, that he designed a part of it. The outer part. So there must be a trail linking that work back to the ones who requested the design."

Brendan looked back down at Worth and was surprised to see his blue eyes were still fixed on his face, looking at him as if he was the most beautiful, awe-inspiring sight ever seen. For a moment, Brendan felt just as mesmerized, his mind taking in every curve of muscle and bone, and every shadow of bruise, sealing the colors and the shapes into his memory forever with the bittersweet knowledge that this was all he would ever have of this man.

The doctor stepping into the room broke the spell and Brendan watched as the woman adjusted the IV and took a note of the readings, writing down the information on the chart she picked up from above the bed. When she looked in Brendan's direction, he could see the sadness haunting her eyes and didn't need confirmation from Freya to know that nothing had changed. Strangely reluctant to leave, he followed the small group outside and left Wells to do all the talking, one doctor to another even if their specialisms differed.

"The internal damage was too severe. We have him on a morphine drip to handle the pain..."

Brendan had to ask. "Can't you operate? Fix this?"

She shook her head. "He's too weak. He'd never survive the anesthesia and our best trauma specialist is already in surgery trying to save someone with better odds."

It sounded cruel but Brendan knew it was a simple matter of triage. Save those you can, and make the rest comfortable in their last hours. "Is there anyone who can stay with him?"

"I'm sorry. The nursing staff is being run off their feet this Christmas, but a local priest is on his way in. I don't know if Mr. Worth has any religious feelings but..." She didn't need to end her sentence as it was obvious that she'd given up trying to save his life and was wondering if he might want to make his peace with God, if he believed at all.

Brendan hated walking away but the investigation couldn't take place around a hospital bed. Perhaps if they pushed now while the incident was still fresh then they might be able to give Worth a reason for what had happened to him, before he died. Wells stopped by the elevator.

"I'm... going to sit with him until..."

In that moment, Brendan decided that he loved Michael Wells; Not in the biblical sense, he thought hard towards Freya, knowing how much she was in love with Wells but for his compassionate nature. She started to roll her eyes before reading from his mind how much it bothered Brendan to leave Worth to die alone. With a fresh sense of urgency, she followed Brendan from the hospital, gathering up Collins at the entrance.

"Okay, we had eighteen authorized flight plans filed within the time period. I've managed to eliminate twelve as executive flights that merely clipped the target zone. Of the remaining six; three were military, one police, and two commercial companies. We're talking to the Police pilot right now but getting anything out of the military is like trying to get blood from a stone."

"And the two commercial companies?"

"Ryland Securities and Dasguard."

The upside of having an eidetic memory was that Brendan recalled everything he read or saw, like looking at a photograph or watching a video. He recognized the second name instantly.

"Dasguard."

Brendan frowned, bringing the memory to the forefront. Dasguard had a private, heavily guarded installation less than two hours away in upstate New York and had been placed on the a watch list following an incident two years earlier involving experiments that contravened several codes within the Geneva Convention. The fact that they had experimented on so-called willing subjects was immaterial because someone serving a life sentence or facing death row really didn't have much of a choice. Be a part of the experiment and maybe walk away a free man, or sit in a cell and rot until death claimed you one way or another.

Organizing the raid on Dasguard took thirty minutes. Getting there took just over the hour in the faster NSA helicopters. Perhaps the security was more lax because of the time of year but when the NSA and FBI combined task force came in, they took the place by surprise with only a couple of guards trying to fend off the assault. Within fifteen minutes of arriving in Dasguard's most heavily secured facility, Brendan was standing on the tarmac of a building that could have housed the space shuttle, staring up at a giant cube containing a single entrance. He and Freya took the elevator up, the NSA and FBI guards subduing any of the scientists they came across and sending them to a containment area. Eventually, Brendan stood looking across a brightly lit, white corridor leading into an interior area that looked more like a massive Rubik cube, though with many more individual cubes making up its planes. Beside the corridor opening was a monitor that showed the moving interior, and he watched as a single cube fell away from the others, racing down the side of the inner shape to take up a new position in the structure. His hand stroked across the surface of the exterior cube; Worth had designed this.

"Shut it down," he ordered the one remaining technician.

"If you want access to the interior section then I'll have to reinitialize before shutting down."

Brendan glanced to Freya, knowing she would be reading the technician's mind for any subterfuge. "He's telling the truth."

"Do it," Brendan ordered.

Several minutes later, a door appeared at the far end of the corridor but before he stepped forward, Brendan recalled that inside here would be smaller cubes filled with death traps.

"I hope you disabled all the traps."

The scientist widened his eyes and Freya smiled savagely at reading the man's surprise at how much they knew about his work. He moved forward only when Freya nodded that it was safe, opening up the far door and climbing inside. Freya followed and then took the lead, opening up a second door, dropping down and then crossing to another cube. Brendan looked inside this one and closed his eyes. Dasguard might have removed all the bodies but they had yet to clear up the mess. Blood was splattered across the room, the air thick and cloying with its metallic scent. He could see the broken handle that had been used to stab Worth, could almost picture Worth falling to the floor, trying to crawl to the side of the young girl victim before lying down to die. Having seen enough, he climbed back up and ordered in the forensic crew.

Agents would be poring over the computers by now, trying find a list of names and dumping grounds for the other bodies.

Glancing at his wristwatch, Brendan noticed it was barely after midnight: Christmas morning. David Worth might still be alive and he deserved to know that they'd caught the people who had done this to him. At least Brendan thought he could use that as a reason for why he wanted to see Worth one more time; wanted to look into his eyes, see his tired smile and feel his cool fingers wrapped around his own. Yet how could he leave here with the job only half done? There was still so much work here to uncover; bodies to find, and people to bring to justice.

Freya grasped his wrist, her small hand covering the watch. "Agent Nash can handle this." He knew she had read his mind and felt a little angry because there was something too precious surrounding his thoughts of Worth, something he truly didn't understand and wished he would have longer to explore.

"Brendan." She stared hard at him, willing him to accept her words. He struggled for a moment but the perfect picture image of Worth's blue eyes came back to haunt him.

"Yeah. Yeah. Nash can handle this."

The journey back took less time as they landed on the hospital's helipad but throughout the flight, Brendan worried that they would still arrive too late. He felt a little guilty at making Freya almost run to keep up with his long strides, and then froze on the threshold of the room assigned to David Worth.

"He's still alive. I can hear his thoughts."

Brendan closed his eyes and pushed open the door, smiling when Worth's eyes drifted towards him, a smile curving his lips. Freya stepped forward and smiled.

"He's still no angel," she murmured, smiling back at Brendan before turning her smile to Wells, who had stayed just as he had promised.

Brendan sat in the vacated seat and picked up Worth's hand, unable to express why this was hurting him so much when they were strangers. From the corner of his eye he saw Wells take Freya aside and murmur something to her; the sorrow in her expression giving his words away. Brendan turned his full attention back to Worth... to David.

"Hey," he stated softly to David. "We got the guys that did this to you and the others." Brendan cleared his throat. "I'd... I wish I could have..." He couldn't say it though, couldn't say how much it was killing him to watch this stranger die. He could barely understand his own feelings, how everything about David sung to him from the moment their eyes met, how he would have liked to spend the rest of his life learning all about this man. He thought of all the things he would never know, the sound of David's voice, his laughter, the way he walked and moved. It wasn't fair.

"No. It isn't fair," Freya stated softly. "He deserves one more miracle but I don't think..."

She stepped forward out of Wells's embrace and grasped David's other hand, concentrating hard. Brendan had no idea what she was doing but her face went first pale and then grey. She dropped David's hand as the dying man cried out weakly, falling back into Wells's arms unconscious.

"Freya!"

Brendan had shoved back the chair hard but hadn't let go of the hand that had tightened around his in pain.

Wells looked across at Brendan, stroking strands of hair from Freya's pale face. "She's all right. She fainted."

"What did she...?" His words died in his mouth as David's hand loosened in his grasp, and Brendan looked down, fearing the worst but the monitors were still registering a heart beat; a beat that was stronger than moments before.

The doctor ran into the room and moved straight to her patient, barely sending a curious glance towards Freya. She had her stethoscope out and was listening to David's heart and lungs, eyes flicking up to the readings. Her eyes held confusion when she looked back at Brendan.

"I'm not sure. There was a sudden spike in his vitals."

She stepped away as her pager went off, calling her to yet another emergency.

When the sun rose on Christmas morning, Brendan had expected the hand held in his own to be cold in death but, instead, the fingers were still warm. They tightened fractionally and Brendan looked at heavy blue eyes and a crooked smile. David was trying to say something so Brendan leaned in closer to hear the soft words.

"My angel."

***

**Exactly One Year Later:**

If someone had asked Brendan before last Christmas then he would have denied the concept of love at first sight, especially as David had been no Adonis with his bruised and swollen face, and his battered body. Yet, Brendan had fallen in love with a complete stranger that last Christmas Eve; a dying stranger. Even more miraculous, that stranger had fallen in love with him.

Brendan leaned up on one elbow and looked down into the sleeping face of his lover, waiting patiently for the moment when heavy blue eyes would open and a smile would straighten the slanted mouth. Last year he had expected a far different outcome, never anticipating that Freya might have another talent hidden up her sleeve that she had been testing with Michael's help; one that allowed her to assist a body in healing itself, directing all its energies to the right places to mend damaged organs and vessels. It could have easily backfired, with her confusing the body but Freya admitted that she had know it would be David's last chance, and hoped for one more miracle that night.

After awakening last Christmas, David had fallen back into a restorative sleep for three days but the prognosis had looked better with each of those passing days. He hadn't gone back to Toronto afterwards, telling Brendan that there really was nothing there for him, something he had discovered during those hours of fear inside the Cube. Eventually he moved into Brendan's small apartment --one item at a time--until Brendan woke up one morning and realized they were together in a permanent relationship.

He couldn't have been happier.

The first stripe of Christmas dawn came through the vertical slit between the curtains, falling upon David's soft, fine, bed-mussed hair and setting it shining with vitality and life like a small halo. Brendan grinned, running a hand through his own hair, recalling how he'd made it even more messy last night when he'd made love to David. The memory was stored along with a year's worth of moments, of touch and taste, of laughter and nights spent talking and talking, of pressing deep inside that perfect body and bringing them both to completion, of holding on so tight afterwards, afraid of ever letting go.

This last year had been the best of his life and today would set a seal on the pain of last Christmas. Freya was due over later to share Christmas Day with them, bringing her own partner, Michael Wells, with her but this moment was for him and for David.

He couldn't help but smile as David took in a deep breath and sighed, eyelashes fluttering as he drew towards consciousness; Brendan's smile growing as those big, baby blue eyes opened, no longer filled with the pain from last Christmas morning. A soft, crooked smile echoed the love shining in David's eyes and Brendan leaned in as David whispered softly, "My angel."

END


End file.
